1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to integrated circuit fabrication and, more particularly, to a gate dielectric having a high dielectric constant and favorable interface properties with underlying semiconductor regions, and to a method for producing this gate dielectric by combining deposition, annealing, and etchback techniques.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
Fabrication of a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit involves numerous processing steps. A gate dielectric, typically formed from silicon dioxide (“oxide”), is formed on a semiconductor substrate which is doped with either n-type or p-type impurities. For each MOS field effect transistor (MOSFET) being formed, a gate conductor is formed over the gate dielectric, and dopant impurities are introduced into the substrate to form a source and drain. A pervasive trend in modem integrated circuit manufacture is to produce transistors having feature sizes as small as possible. Many modem day processes employ features, such as gate conductors and interconnects, which have less than 1.0 μm critical dimension. As feature size decreases, the sizes of the resulting transistor and the interconnect between transistors also decrease. Fabrication of smaller transistors allows more transistors to be placed on a single monolithic substrate, thereby allowing relatively large circuit systems to be incorporated on a single, relatively small die area.
As MOSFET feature sizes decrease, gate oxide thickness decreases as well. This decrease in gate oxide thickness is driven in part by the demands of overall device scaling. As gate conductor widths decrease, for example, other device dimensions must also decrease in order to maintain proper device operation. Early MOSFET scaling techniques involved decreasing all dimensions and voltages by a constant scaling factor, to maintain constant electric fields in the device as the feature size decreased. This approach has given way to more flexible scaling guidelines which account for operating characteristics of short-channel devices. For example, a maximum value of MOSFET subthreshold current can be maintained while feature sizes shrink, by decreasing any or all of several quantities, including gate oxide thickness, operating voltage, depletion width, and junction depth, by appropriate amounts.
Another factor driving reduction of gate oxide thickness is the increased transistor drain current realized for a reduced gate dielectric thickness. Higher transistor drain currents are desirable because they allow each transistor to drive a greater number of other transistors, and can result in increased switching speeds. The transistor drain current is proportional to the amount of charge induced in the transistor channel region by the voltage applied to the gate conductor. The amount of charge induced by a given voltage drop across the gate oxide is the voltage drop multiplied by the capacitance of the oxide. Increasing the capacitance of the oxide therefore increases the transistor drain current. The capacitance C of the oxide can be written as for a parallel plate capacitor:C=∈A/tox,where ∈ is the permittivity of the oxide, A is its area, and tox is the oxide thickness. The value of the capacitance is therefore dependent upon both the thickness and the permittivity of the gate oxide.
In order to achieve increased capacitance, gate oxide thickness has been reduced so much that current oxides are on the order of tens of angstroms thick. Unfortunately, thin oxide films may break down when subjected to an electric field. Particularly, for a gate oxide which is less than 50 Å thick, it is probable that even for a relatively low gate voltage of 3V, electrons can pass through the gate oxide by what is known as t he quantum mechanical tunneling effect. In this manner, a tunneling current may undesirably form between the semiconductor substrate and the gate conductor, adversely affecting the operability of the device. It is postulated that some of these electrons may become entrapped within the gate oxide by e.g., dangling bonds. As a result, a net negative charge density may form in the gate oxide. As the trapped charge accumulates with time, the threshold voltage VT may shift from its design specification. Breakdown of the gate oxide may also occur at even lower values of gate voltage, as a result of defects in the gate oxide. Such defects are unfortunately prevalent in relatively thin gate oxides. For example, a thin gate oxide often contains pinholes and/or localized voids due to unevenness at which the oxide grows on a less than perfect silicon lattice.
A more promising approach to further increasing gate dielectric capacitance may be to increase the permittivity of the gate dielectric. Permittivity, ∈, of a material reflects the ability of the material to be polarized by an electric field. The permittivity of a material is typically described as its permittivity normalized to the permittivity of a vacuum, ∈o. Hence, the relative permittivity or dielectric constant K of a material is defined as:K=∈/∈oWhile oxide has a dielectric constant of approximately 4, other materials have higher K values. Silicon nitride (“nitride”), for example, has a K of about 6 to 9 (depending on formation conditions). Much higher K values of, for example, 20 or more can be obtained with various transition metal oxides including tantalum oxide (Ta2O5), barium strontium titanate (“BST”), and lead zirconate titanate (“PZT”). Using a high-K material for a gate dielectric would allow a high capacitance to be achieved even with a relatively thick dielectric. For example, a nitride gate dielectric having a thickness of 100 angstroms is substantially electrically equivalent to an oxide gate dielectric having a thickness of about 50 angstroms. For even higher-K dielectrics, even thicker gate dielectrics could be formed while maintaining capacitance values higher than are possible with even very thin oxide layers. In this way, the reliability problems associated with very thin dielectric layers may be avoided while transistor performance is improved.
Although the high-K values of the dielectrics described above make them attractive gate dielectric candidates, integration of these materials into a MOSFET does present problems. One of the most significant challenges with using a gate dielectric other than oxide is forming a dielectric/silicon interface having quality comparable to that of the silicon/SiO2 interface. The interface between silicon and thermally grown oxide is believed to exhibit among the lowest known densities of interface states (energy levels which may trap electrons, resulting from defects such as dangling bonds) for a semiconductor/insulator interface. Thermally grown oxide also contains a relatively low density of trapping states within the oxide itself. These low trap densities are important to the ability to form devices having stable operating characteristics. A high density of traps increases the probability of charge trapping at the interface or within the dielectric during device operation. This charge trapping can lead to shifts in threshold voltage, as noted above.
It would therefore be desirable to develop a method for formation of a thin gate dielectric containing a high-K material. The desired gate dielectric, and the interface between the dielectric and underlying silicon, should have a low density of trapping states.